When I spoke with David Burris on December 18, 2014, one of the things I most wanted to talk to him about was getting the accents right in THE WORLD MADE STRAIGHT. It’s set in North Carolina, and he used actors from such far-flung places as Australia, England, and Los Angeles. We went on to… Read More »
PIRATE RADIO
What PIRATE RADIO does that is so remarkable is to capture as closely as a film can what it was like to be a fan of rock & roll at a time when it was considered not just noise, but actual subversion. Of course, in a way it was. This music was the anthem of… Read More »
VITUS
The secret life of children is fertile territory. The unsullied logic of those for whom preconceived notions and ossified received wisdom are phenomenon yet to come make for a piquant commentary on both. The innocence, the unrestrained emotion, and the intellect unfettered by the conventions of society are a potent combination in VITUS, a delightful… Read More »
Fredi M. Murer on VITUS
Fredi Murer, a courtly gentleman given to performing deft sleight-of-hand for his interviewers, tapped his own childhood when he created VITUS, both the film and the character. Murer himself was not a genius in the classroom, as he tells it, but he did have a creative streak that landed him in all sorts of usual scrapes. When we talked… Read More »
Taylor Hackford Presents RAY
You can’t talk to Taylor Hackford about RAY and not understand why this was a project that he pursued doggedly for over a decade. Given Jamie Foxx’s electrifying performance as Ray Charles, it was worth the wait. Hackford saw the story not just of one man beating the odds personally and professionally, but also as metaphor… Read More »
Rodriguez & Malik Bendjalloul — SEARCHING FOR SUGARMAN
The story behind SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN is a textbook definition of truth being stranger that fiction. A Mexican-American singer/songwriter with a social conscious and a unique definition of success inspires a generation of South Africans to rebel against Apartheid with his music. The twist, he has no idea he’s famous there, and his fans… Read More »
Elizabeth Olsen & Sean Durkin on MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE
Click here to listen to the interview with Sean Durkin and Elizabeth Olsen. MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE are all aspects of the character played by Elizabeth Olsen in a transcendent performance. When I spoke to her and the film’s writer/director Sean Durkin on September 1, 2011, I started by asking about the choice to have… Read More »
Lou Taylor Pucci & Jim Kohlberg Reveal Why THE MUSIC NEVER STOPPED
When I spoke with director Jim Kohlberg and actor Lou Taylor Pucci about THE MUSIC NEVER STOPPED on March 2, 2011, it was hard to know where to start. The film, based on an essay by Oliver Sacks about a man who lost his short-term memory, but not his love for music, raises many questions… Read More »
Richard Curtis Captures PIRATE RADIO
Richard Curtis had more than just multiple story lines to juggle with PIRATE RADIO, he also had a cast afloat on a boat that was at the mercy of the whims of the ocean. When we talked on October 21, 2009, the question of seasickness was inevitable. The real topic was music, and the revolutionary… Read More »